Brian Moore: allowing England's hookers to hire motorbikes during World Cup in New Zealand is madness

The sensible approach to what players should/should not be allowed to do to
prevent boredom during long tournaments should rest solely on whether there
is any realistic, as opposed to notional, risk of compromising performance,
bearing in mind, as England’s rugby Manager Martin Johnson said recently,
they can easily get injured in training.

Therefore, England players going bungy jumping, having a beer and jet-boating is not a problem for rational people and press speculation about whether Nick Easter’s back injury was caused by bungying is, frankly silly.

He jumped on a Monday, trained fully all week and got up on Saturday feeling stiff - ergo?

Bearing the above in mind I was surprised to be told when renting a Suzuki 650 V-Strom to tour the Otago Peninsular this week, that I was the fourth English hooker to do this recently.

The company owner’s claim that Messrs Hartley, Thompson and Mears are fellow bikers would normally fill me with joy, but not for the period of the 2011 Rugby World Cup. Biking has more than a theoretical risk attached, ask Carlo Cudicini.

I’m not sure what insurer is covering the RWC, but biking probably isn’t in the negligible risk section of their policy and that is because if you come off a bike, for any reason, it is almost guaranteed that you will be injured.

Even if statistically players are still more likely to get injured training, you can be fairly sure there won’t be a lorry coming in the other direction.

All hookers are a bit mad, but England’s management should ensure this type of madness is left to those no longer carrying the rugby hopes of a nation.

Meanwhile, throughout New Zealand the collective nervousness caused by this weekend’s forthcoming game against France is building daily.

The French so far have been average and the All Blacks have taken what some view as an unusual step of having their players watch the previous World Cup defeats inflicted by the French in 1999 and 2007.

You could question the usefulness of doing this, given that few players were involved from either side in 2007 and none in 1999. However, it's useful to see how contrarily brilliant the French can be when not in Singes-Capitulards-Mangeurs-de-Fromage mode. Moreover, history is not a new psychological tool within the New Zealand camp.

Any All Black is made acutely aware of the legacy he inherits and those who have worn his jersey previously. This gives a feeling of pride, that he is counted among the greats; it is also a powerful reminder of what is expected. Outside one Auckland restaurant there are imprints of the hands and feet of former All Blacks, like those of movie stars on Hollywood Boulevard. A while back, when the Kiwis hit what for them was a low ebb, their players were taken there and asked what those whose marks had been left in concrete would have made of their efforts.

The New Zealand media has shown signs of stress with its almost hysterical reaction to the selections made by the French coach Marc Lievremont, like choosing tighthead Luc Ducalon and centre Maxime Mermoz, both of whom have only one cap, and playing scrum-half Morgan Parra at fly-half, when he has not played there regularly since his junior playing days.

There have been accusations that this is a deliberately sub-standard team and an insult to the All Blacks. Well, the Kiwis don’t need much or indeed any evidence to allege disrespect, but they are way wide of the mark here.

The reason for this is their lack of knowledge of French selectorial history. On our side of the world we know that the phrase 'Mad as a box of Lievremonts’ could be amended to use the name Laporte or any of his predecessors.

The gentle comedy is merely a poke at the way France has, does and will continue to drop six or seven players at a time and still manage to perform brilliantly every now and again.

In other ways and other parts of the Kiwi media the World Cup has penetrated beyond the usual reporting of All Black results. Stations that are normally focused almost solely on music have been having extended comment pieces on the World Cup and phone-ins have featured few other topics.

One thing that regular listeners and viewers of New Zealand TV and radio will confirm is that their attitude to direct comment, including the odd bit of swearing, is refreshingly robust compared to the prissily enforced strictures on the UK media, where even the odd slip is pilloried.

The usually good natured banter between the Kiwis and Aussies has been descending into unpleasantness around World Cup matches, some of it due to the fact that Australia fly-half Quade Cooper got away with kneeing All Black legend Richie McCaw in the head recently.

It is rumoured Cooper used what is known as the Mealamu Defence, after Kiwi hooker Kevin simply averred 'I didn’t do it' which an International Rugby Board Disciplinary Panel accepted as compelling evidence of innocence where everyone else saw only physical assault.

In response to the worsening behaviour of some Kiwi supporters, a presenter on Radio Hauraki, a rock station, stepped well outside his usual brief to deliver a stinging, yet apposite condemnation of the behaviour.

To paraphrase, he said: 'Australia is New Zealand’s biggest market for exports, Australians are our most numerous tourists and we have a joint history of political and economic cooperation going back since the founding of both our countries. On top of that, don’t we want to play against and beat the best in the world; is that not the All Black way? Man, this spitting at, booing and threatening of Aussie supporters makes us look like a bunch of angry, retarded ---------. For God’s sake grow up, man up and stop acting like a load of woosy, crybaby ---------.'

Now that’s the sort of refreshing straight-thinking and talking we could do with more of.